This vegetable bed thing is harder than it looks

With flowers you just water/fertilize and they either look pretty or they don't. With vegetables there's all this timing involved - if you pick them too soon they're tough, pick them too late they're slimy.

I've made some major mistakes with my first vegetable bed:

1. I planted WAYYYY too much in one bed. At some point all my vining plants (cantalope, zucchini, squash) got tangled up, so I pulled some out to give them more breathing room. I have no idea what's still there, so I guess that will be a surprise.
2. I didn't anticipate how high the okra would grow; I planted the spinach behind them and the eggplant to the right of them. The okra block the sun for both angles, so those 2 plants aren't exactly thriving.

This was the bed a few weeks ago. It looks a little more haggard now since the summer heat really kicked in, but still not horrible.

It would help if I watered every day without fail, and probably help more if I sprayed seaweed every once in a while.

But here's the cool part:

That's right, you're looking at red okra! The only problem is that I've got 4 of them. Not exactly enough for a side dish. Another unanticipated challenge of growing veggies: quantity. I have some more okra buds (I don't know what you call them!) and I hear tell they grow fast, so hopefully I'll be able to pull off 4 or 5 more in the next few days. I have no idea how long these will keep on my shelf.

Well, there's always Spring!